Secondary teachers and information literacy (IL): Teacher understanding and perceptions of IL in the classroom

Abstract

Secondary teachers have the opportunity and the curriculum mandates to teach information literacy skills, yet students enter post-secondary studies with low information literacy proficiency. In many cases, teachers present the only opportunity for students to develop information literacy proficiency. With semi-structured interviews, this study explored eight secondary teachers' perceptions of information literacy and their experiences with IL as educational professionals. Confusion around the phrase information literacy was a dominant theme as participants were unfamiliar with the term and were inconsistent in defining the scope of what it might mean. Although there are references to information literacy skills in the core curriculum and support documents, participants varied in their instruction and understanding of this skill set. Participants unanimously agreed that information literacy skills, as explained using the Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000), were important for their students. However, the extent of IL skills required varied by student. Pursuing post-secondary studies warranted advanced IL, and these students were more likely to be taught higher-level skills. IL skill development was also assumed to be the responsibility of the student, and passive acquisition was anticipated. Assumptions regarding student need and ability informed instruction. These results suggest that the current curricular mandates are insufficient to ensure IL is incorporated into instruction and that teachers are ill-prepared to instruct IL effectively.